Revisiting labour and gender issues in Export Processing Zones : the cases of South Korea, Bangladesh and India

The establishment of Export Processing Zones (EPZs) is a strategy for economic development that was introduced almost fifty years ago and is nowadays employed in a large number of countries. While the number of EPZs including several variants such as Special Economic Zone (SEZs) has increased continuously, general interest in EPZs has declined over the years in contrast to earlier heated debates regarding the efficacy of the strategy and its welfare effects especially on women workers. This article re-evaluates the historical trajectories and outstanding labour and gender issues of EPZs on the basis of the experiences of South Korea, Bangladesh and India. The findings suggest the necessity of enlarging our analytical scope with regard to EPZs, which are inextricably connected with external employment structures, whether outside the EPZ but within the same country, or outside the EPZ and its host country altogether.

The Bangladesh gender gap in education : biased intra-household educational expenditures

By investigating the educational expenditure of children over the ten years (2000 to 2010), we evaluate whether there exists any gender specific discrepancy at the household level and the trend of such discrepancy over the years. Using three rounds of nationally representative Household Income & Expenditure Surveys this study reveals that households spend less on education for their school-going girls compared to boys. By disaggregating the total expenditure into fixed and variable components, we find persistent gender imbalance in educational expenditure where households provide better quality of education for boys. Moreover, we find that gender based discrepancy has a very persistent trend and does not show any significant sign of narrowing the gap over the years. Cohort wise difference-in-difference estimation also reveals that the gap has initially widened and later converged but has not diminished beyond the initial level of discrepancy, which may warrant targeted policy intervention.